


Oxytocin

by Quill_of_Thoth



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Misunderstandings, neurotransmitters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 02:48:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13044933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quill_of_Thoth/pseuds/Quill_of_Thoth
Summary: A forgotten biomonitor patch gives Dr. McCoy far more information than he required about that damn workaholic vulcan.





	Oxytocin

 

“What a week,” grumbled Dr. McCoy, wiping sweat off his face from his run. As immersive as the treadmills in the Enterprise’s gym supposedly were, they weren’t a patch on the real thing. Still, he should know better than anyone else on the ship how necessary cardio was, and he’d be damned if he couldn’t keep up with Jim Kirk on a little shipside jog. “If it’s not energy beings trying to steal our bodies or angry pre-warp civilizations with spears, it’s engine repairs and the damn bureaucracy. I don’t know which is worse!”

Kirk, who was wearing his towel over his bare shoulders as an accessory instead of using it, laughed. “I never thought I’d see the day that _you_ complained about a boring mission,” he said.

“If your crew had a lick of sense, I wouldn’t have to. The injuries and illnesses that the men and women aboard this ship get from sheer stupidity the minute they don’t have a death defying, physics-ignoring mission to keep them busy beggar belief.”

“I do get the reports, Bones,” Kirk reminded him, still amused.

“Well, there is one benefit to a boring mission,” McCoy replied, “And that’s a good drink at the end of a long day. You up for it?”

Kirk shook his head. “I’ll have to take a rain check: it’s chess night with Spock.”

At the mere mention of Spock, McCoy put his hands, towel included, on his hips. “In that case, tell him that as long as he’s got that monitor stuck to the back of his neck, I know when he stays up all night tinkering with the computers and terrorizing the ensigns. Vulcan or not, he needs sleep!”

Shaking his head, Kirk gave him a thumbs up and jogged off to the showers. McCoy downed the rest of his water bottle and followed him, thinking that whoever had designed those red starfleet issue workout pants didn’t understand how pants actually worked. Kirk was the only person he knew who seemed to like wearing them.

Twenty minutes later, showered and shaved, McCoy settled into a chair with an excessively trashy Martian thriller on his PADD and three fingers of Kentucky’s finest. It had been so long since he’d started the novel that he decided to go back to the beginning, and he muttered to himself in the blessed quiet whenever the hero managed to do something that even Jim Kirk wouldn’t have considered. At least, not with his Vulcan shadow to tell him that it wasn’t logical to expect to survive an explosion in a refrigerated storage locker, or to jump from a hovercraft into a river.

He was just starting to remember the plot around about chapter eight, when the hero’s contacts betrayed him to the Martian Mob, when his computer spat out a distinctive two-toned beep.

“What in the cotton picking…” he trailed off, remembering that he’d set up an alert on his personal computer for the only crewman currently under medical observation. Spock’s mysterious cluster headaches had been coming and going since that business with Sargon and his crew of body-inhabiting energy beings. Spock thought it was telepathic, and McCoy was convinced it was the stubborn workaholic’s nonexistent sleep schedule. He set his glass aside and turned on the computer screen, rummaging around under his desk for his medical bag. Spock wouldn’t appreciate him dropping in, but he could suck it up, he was probably trying to meditate away the headache right now…

Those readings were nothing like a cluster headache, though. There were elevated levels of Irak-however-Spock-pronounced-it, the primary hormone involved in telepathy, but also dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin… norepinephrine and vasopressin were there as well, or their vulcan equivalents anyway. Weirdly, there wasn’t any K3 reading at all.

McCoy sat down and stared at his screen, wondering if it was some new form of meditation. He’d gone charging into Spock’s room the first week that he had the biomonitor on when he’d gotten anomalous readings, interrupting Spock’s meditation, and he hadn’t yet heard the end of it. What the ever loving hell could Spock be doing that would give him such high levels of the hug hormone anyway? The fact that he even had it, as opposed to just the Vulcan analogue that was released upon telepathic, and not physical, contact, was something that McCoy wouldn’t even know if he didn’t have nearly a month’s records of Spock’s hormones. Also, wasn’t he supposed to be playing chess with Jim? What on god’s green earth was _Jim_ doing that would make a vulcan feel the warm fuzzies…?

All of the sudden, McCoy felt realization wash in a hot wave over his face, followed by a violent blush. _Of course_. Half the ship joked about “chess” being a euphemism when Jim and Spock were cuddled up in some hidey hole on a planet, or too busy staring at each other on the bridge to include anyone else in the conversation. Sure, Jim and Spock were adults who knew what they were getting into, but that didn’t mean that McCoy should have to _see_ the evidence!

“Goddamn it, Jim!” he swore at the computer screen, and stomped back to his chair, resolutely pouring himself another glass and trying not to think about having breakfast in the morning with his superior officers when he knew for a fact they’d been in bed together.

 

“And _that_ ,” said Kirk, his breath hot on the nape of Spock’s neck, “Is the proper way to get a kink out of someone’s back.” He dug his thumbs into the knot under Spock’s left shoulder blade one last time for emphasis, and then let his hands drift down to bracket the lower edges of Spock’s ribs.

Spock turned to him, one lazy blink away from his usual composure. Kirk was still surprised that he’d agreed to the massage, less because it involved being touched than because it involved admitting that he’d enjoy it.

Apparently framing it as a learning opportunity had been enough of an excuse, though, because Spock rolled his shoulders a little.

“You may continue with the demonstration,” said Spock over his shoulder. “I am, as always, fascinated to learn.”

Kirk chuckled and skimmed his hands back up the black undershirt to get started on Spock’s neck.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to the Vulcan language dictionary for providing me with a likely prefix to butcher for the telepathic neurotransmitter. 
> 
> And happy winter holidays to the fandom, as un-festive as my muse is. :)


End file.
